Buying New Studio XPS Now, Worth It?

For USD 1000 (I'm not in the USA, this is after conversion) after a limited time USD 130 discount promo:

Studio XPS 16

+ i5-460M
+ 4GB RAM
+ 500GB 7200RPM
+ HD5730 1GB
+ 15.6 inch 1920x1080 WLED
+ Dell 1520 Wireless-N card
+ 90W Adapter
+ 6 Cell Battery
+ 1 Year XPS Premier Service (1 Yr CompleteCover)

I need to add International Warranty (3 Years XPS Premier Service + 1 Yr CompleteCover) and this costs USD 200.

The price above does not include a bag, speakers, upgrades or anything else.

Please advise, is USD 1200 too much for this old design, flawed design, old parts laptop, or what? Otherwise, at what price should I negotiate?

After all, Dell's is the only warranty I trust, and I don't want an XPS 15 with i5-480M and GT420M (the only variant sold here curently, not that I want i7 quad). SB laptops are not out because SB has major issues. Alienware with SB costs USD 2650 here.

Thanks.

 

I'd avoid the 16 series. Heat and other issues--search the board.

 

I'm aware - but at what price would this be worth it?

After all this is a 35W TDP i5-460M and not the i7 quad (which I've used before).

 

They've offered USD 1160 with bag and 3 year warranty. Worth it? They're not willing to go down further.

 

I thought the 5730 weren't affected by the throttling issues. As long as you get the extended warranty you should be fine, in any case too many replacements would get you a new XPS...

 

Yeah, with the warranty it is safe. But is the price of USD 1160 for this old product worth it?

 

In my opinion no. Wait for the SB refresh. It's not just about the performance but about the reduced TDP which decreases the noise level and increases the life span of your whole system.

 

Reduced TDP?

New SB are also 35W but with the Intel Graphics.
There'll be a discrete GPU all the same.
Apart from having *newer* construction and *faster* capabilities, I don't think TDP is one of the factors that will be changing.

 

Don't forget that's maximum TDP, with the SB quadcores how often and for how long will you be running at the top of the TDP?

 

I waz told... April or May... for the "refresh".

I know SXPS is really crappy, quite old, and rather expensive. But I only trust Dell warranty. If an old laptop (even a crappy one like this) is covered for hardware for 3 years, then I don't think it matters. I bought a i7-720QM (at a ridiculously high price since I'm not in the USA, i.e. a US 900-1000 laptop maybe up to USD 1200 initially, at about USD 1600 here) laptop when it was first available and it sucked lol.

Sandy Bridge is supposed to be faster but it is still 45W (and 35W) TDP, and it has problems right now, says Intel.

But USD 1160 for the SXPS i5 version with 3 years warranty?

 

Sandy Bridge is 35 & 45W yes but it's also incredibly power-efficient. You get more battery life off a 45W quad-core (Sandy Bridge) than you would get with a 35W dual-core (Arrandale) right now.

 

My two cents: I have been looking at the new XPS 15, but compared to my old one, it is so ugly. If I could repurchase the SXPS 16 with the same specs I would do so in a heart beat. It was a great machine, both performance wise, and aesthetically. I never had any problems with it, and that involved heavy usage of Rhino, Autodesk, and Adobe products, some gaming (SC2, the New Need for Speed Hot Pursuit) and viewing lots of HD content. Yeah sometimes it got a little warm, but apparently so does the new XPS. You need to ask yourself is it worth it to you. What do you want to do with the laptop? IMHO the SXPS looks newer than the current XPS's...

 

Ive had both. First sxps 16, now an XPS 15. To make the point, I just bought a new sxps 16 on their blowout a week ago and am selling the xps 15. Its just too big, ugly, etc. Hate it.

 

45 minutes more battery roughly.

 

Well, that sounds really good - I find it rather incredible that a quad i7 (even if it's SB) can give more battery than an Arrandale i5, having used the i7-720QM a lot before. Old i7 quad users always have to turn the brightness down and do almost nothing when on 6-cell battery, or keep plugged in permanently. Of course most people want the newer tech, and in this case USD 1160 for the i5 SXPS isn't particularly cheap for me (although the newer XPS 15 with a rather similar price only has i5-480M, GT420M, and 766p screen). But I may have to wait up till May to get the new tech, and now with the Intel fault it may not be "trustable". In my country I only got the i7-720QM in Jan/Feb 2010 and it was still a few hundred dollars more... people in North America and Europe probably got it in Oct 2009.

I agree the front looks horrible for the XPS and great for the SXPS. The only thing I could like about the XPS is that it uses metal parts and has no blocked vent - but then the configurations offered were extremely crappy. I also expected it to be hot because it used an Nvidia GT4xx... and it seems some of you don't have a problem with the SXPS vent.

So now, would I go for the long wait until the Sandy Bridge dual and quad core XPS 15s come out? Since XPS 17 version 2 has Nvidia it makes sense that XPS 15 version 2 would have Nvidia as well, but hopefully it won't because Alienwares have got mixed GPUs.

Otherwise, I could buy the Studio XPS with 3 years warranty now at no less than USD 1160, with its outdated i5-460M, 5730 1GB, and USB 2.0.

 

Now I'm told it'll be in March, which is probably not that soon anyway (end March = April = early May).

It'll be almost identical to the current XPS 15 (as the 2nd XPS 17 is to the original) with a newer Nvidia card I suppose.

Good bye slot loading drives, available 1080p screens, and backlit keyboards (because they are not supplied or grossly undersupplied).

They say they will take away Studio XPS soon, but if you see they still sell SXPS 1640s and 1647s throughtout the world... even with HD 3670, T series, and P series processors that other countries have aborted in over a year. They did eventually take away XPS M1330 though.

March *seems* like only a short wait, but who knows when an XPS 15 will actually be delivered?

 

my sxps 1645 had a minor USB issue...and they offered to give me an xps 17 replacement with everything upgraded....i am thinking of turning them down just because the 1645 looks so beautiful, i get complements on it everywhere I go. I might just ask them to send me a refurb 1645.

The new xps looks like crap.

 

It does, the only thing I like about it is the metallic part of the keyboard (better than XPS M1330's too), but the beige/brown/grey colouring isn't right.

But new XPS has USB 3.0, Bluetooth 3.0, not to mention the old SXPS is still rather expensive as they are unwilling to come down on the price.

 

Ok, now for USD 1000 the system will have the 16 inch RGBLED.

Extension to 3 year normal warranty will cost USD 200.

I may be able to get a small discount of USD 40.

The RGBLED upgrade used to cost at least USD 200.

Should I get it now? The previous "deal" expired, this new RGBLED package just went up - you can no longer choose the 15.6 normal screen.

 

That is an excellent deal. The hardware is still equal or better (w/ the 5730) than the current XPS 15, and with the RGBLED at that price you're golden. Also, the i5 + 5730 combo pretty much eliminates threat of the heat/throttling problems that plagued the earlier SXPS 16s.

For reference, mine (specs below, but a 500GB 7200RPM HDD instead of the SSD) cost me $1180 w/ a 2yr warranty, after the EPP discount and a 10% off coupon about 6 months ago. You're getting the RGBLED with it, a longer warranty, plus most laptops are more expensive outside the US, so it's an excellent deal. I've owned many laptops in the last 10 years (mostly Dell and ASUS, plus one horrible mistake from Lenovo), and the SXPS 16 is the best so far.

 

That is really convincing now with the RGBLED I'm thinking about this more and more lol. Yes, Lenovo was a horrible mistake (their low end models outperform their twice/thrice as expensive high end ones).

It might be too late to get this RGBLED version if I waited till March-May for the Sandy Bridge update, and really the only appealing thing would be the new CPU and a better-than-5730 GPU (as compared to the current ty XPS 15 I would never buy).

Again, it is more expensive relative to Acer/Asus laptops with the latest 6570 AMD GPUs and Sandy Bridge (albeit flawed ones), considering it has i5-460 and 5730, though those don't have RGBLED 1080p of course.

I'm hoping to use it for a while and if anything happens the 3 year international warranty should get me an Alienware or high end XPS or something in the future? How do you justify any sort of replacement for an RGBLED?

Should I be at all concerned that I'm getting this super old screen - seeing as 5730 and i5-460 are comparatively newly made (2010).